2017 Hugo Packet

As a nominee for Best Fanzine in the 2017 Best Fanzine Hugo Award, we were invited to supply a copy of our work for the Hugo packet. Since Rocket Stack Rank published about 900 different articles last year (every review is its own article), that didn't seem very practical, so the award organizers suggested we create an article (this post) to direct people to highlights from 2016. The official packet will include a suggestion that people who want to evaluate Rocket Stack Rank come to this page to get an idea of what we're all about.

Evaluating the Site

The most important thing is that you should only use material posted during calendar 2016 to evaluate the site. To make that easier, we've created a few links to point you at appropriate web pages.

How to Use Rocket Stack Rank

This short article is the quickest way to get a feel for what RSR is all about. In addition to explaining how to get the most out of our site, it encapsulates our vision and shows why we're not just another site that does reviews.

Regular Articles

If you have the time, a very direct way to evaluate the site it to look at all of our regular articles for 2016. These are all the posts we made except for reviews and the "pages" which you reach through the tabs at the top of the screen. At a minimum, scroll down the list to get an idea of the types of things we write about. 

We're particularly proud of Slate Voting Analysis Using EPH Data: 2014-2016, which we think is the most accurate numerical assessment of the impact the Sad/Rabid Puppies had on the awards.

Reviews

To evaluate our reviews, you should probably read one or more of the stories we reviewed and then have a look at how we reviewed them. To make that easier, here's a list of all the short fiction in the Hugo packet that we reviewed. As you read through the stories in the packet, find them on that page and click on the "RSR Mini-review" link. 

Pages

In addition to that, have a look at the pages that are accessed via the tabs at the top of the screen. These three are the most important:

Hugo Recommendations (2016).  This is the archived page we constructed to help people make Hugo nominations in 2016. It contains a great deal of our added value, so please give it a close look.

Year-to-Date Page. During the year, we keep a running tally of which stories got the best reviews from the most reviewers. This is the final version of the 2016 year-to-date page, so it summarizes the whole year.

Questions and Answers. The Q&A page covers every question we could think of that anyone might want to ask.